I Am PanThe Story of A Mad Man
by LunaPax
Summary: Dr.'s Wendy and Micheal Darling say goodbye to their childhood as they relieve an old man of his nightmarish belief in a fiction paradise called 'Neverland'.


I Am Pan!  
  
1 The story of a mad man  
  
Inspired by the book, "Peter and Wendy" written by Sir James M. Barrie  
  
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters of settings mentioned in the following story. Peter, John, Wendy, Micheal, the Lost Boys, and Neverland are all the creations of Sir James Barrie. I am not making any money off this story.  
  
  
  
"I am Peter Pan!"  
  
The cry of a hoarse old man echoed through the empty hallway. Lined with identical white doors, the hall glistens with the disinfectant applied primarily to block out the smell of urine and dung that leaks from under each door. Large, one way plexiglass windows dot the walls, revealing the equally bleached rooms inside. Only the unmistakable sound od sobbing hints that there may be human inhabitants there. The bare hallway echos the crys, doubling them, tripling them, until it seems the whole of the building would be crushed beneath the weight of them.  
  
In the last room of the hallway, room 16-1-14, a lone patient sits on his pullout bed. Past middle age, his thing, gray hair shows only traces of the shocking red it once was. His receeding hairline reveals a light dusting of freckles, that spreads through his entire pale body. Clothed in a sterile white, his arms are folded across his chest, and strapped in place. They lay, lifeless, in full acceptance of their fate. Nothing sets this man apart from the other patients down the hall, aside from his face, mouth open in a loud, triumphant crow.  
  
I was this crow that opened the doors at the other end of the hallway, and sends dozens of green suited men and women pouring in. Two, a man and a women, lead the group. They took no part in carrying the silver cart, loaded with syringes, tubes, and clear bags filled with liquid medicine.  
  
The man, blue eyes blazing, fixed his gaze on the last door.  
  
"What happened?" the official demanded of his staff. "Who lowered his dosage?"  
  
The following nurses cringed and back away slowly. Unstaisfied at the lack of response, the official moved to scold them. The women,who's sandy blonde hair marked her as his sister, laid her hand upon his arm to steady him.  
  
"Micheal..." she warned. The man, Micheal, glowered at his sister, who shook her head. "No one lowered his dosage, Micheal," she said. "He's been resisting treatment for weeks now. Surely you expected an outbreak of sorts?"  
  
As the two siblings passed room 2-42-10, one of the syringes dropped the the floor with a clatter. Immediatly the patients in nearby rooms were brought to life, slamming themselves against the doors and screaming obscenities.  
  
"You, you, and you!" Dr. Micheal pointed to three of the nurses, who trembled at the acknowledgement. "Calm these patients down! And for Pete's sake, sterilize that needle before you put it back on the cart!"  
  
As nurses rushed to obey, Dr. Micheal turned back to his sister, Dr. Wendy Darling. They, and the remaining members of their crew, started back up the hallway. Behind the, nurses began to slip into rooms, needles in hand.  
  
"I thought we'd fixed the medicine," Dr. Micheal admitted. "It was working in all the other patients."  
  
Dr. Wendy shook her head, and a tan curl popped from its hold in a hair clip. "We fixed a few of PPD's problems, thats what they call it now, PPD. But PPD is no miracle worker, Micheal."  
  
Dr. Micheal grinned wryly, "You know, John would have loved this."  
  
Dr. Wendy stopped short, causing one of the nurses to bump roughly into her. Behind her, she heard one of the sterilizing glasses tip over.  
  
"Loved what?" she asked, and used a guaze pad to wipe up the mess.  
  
"You know," he said vaguly, watching her. His sister gave him a chastizing look and he tried again. "How our only two failures have the same mental problem."  
  
Instead of the expected laugh, and lecture on coincidences, Dr. Wendy looked thoughtful. "What if they know something we don't?"  
  
Dr. Micheal rolled his eyes, a rather comical sight coming from a 45 year old. "Please," he said. "They're nutcases. Why else would they be here? To keep us company?"  
  
His sister ignored him, lost in thought. The only indication of her awareness was to push the cart forward.  
  
"Think about this," she told him as a nurse took over the job. "Our medication is proven to help patients come to terms with reality. And the only two that do not, are somehow connected with..."  
  
"Peter Pan," Dr. Micheal finished for her.  
  
"Peter Pan," she confirmed. "So either we and the entire medical unit have overlooked some detail in our calculations, or at least a part of this Peter Pan story is real."  
  
Dr. Micheal seemed all but ready to agree, but paused, his mouth half open. The two siblings exchanged amused glances before bursting into laughter. Once more, the sound of voices drew the patients out of their coma like states. While they protested of their surroundings, more nurses abandoned the group to help calm them.  
  
"I'll have the staff check the numbers immediatly," Dr. Micheal promised. "We sound like children!"  
  
Dr. Wendy winked foolishly at him, "Our friends always said we grew up slower than them. It's times like these when I wonder if we ever grew up at all."  
  
"We did," Dr. Micheal insisted. seeing his sisters raised eyebrow, he grinned. "If we hadn't, I'd still have a full head of hair!"  
  
Dr. Wendy laughed quietly, careful not to undo the nurses work in the rooms. "John didn't grow up, thats for sure," she commented.  
  
She paused the train of nurses with an uplifted hand as she stopped to check in on a patient. Beyond the glass, a small, blonde pigtailed girl sat, talking seemingly to the wall. The little girl, who looked no more than six, spread her arms wide and laughed when her shadow did the same.  
  
"Sometimes I wonder if we have any right to put children like Clarissa here into a mental hospital. Her only charge was telling stories to her shadow, Micheal. She was locked up because she told stories."  
  
Dr. Micheal, realizing the dangerous ground they were treading on, drew her away from the window. "There are stories and there are stories," he said and wiped a tear from her eye. "John told stories too."  
  
Dr, wendy nodded faintly, as if the slight movement would cause her neck to break and her head to come tumbling off. "I remember," she laughed sadly as she motioned the nurses to keep moving. "He used to write me letters, filled with tales of the wonderful things in...what was it called? Never- Never Land? He kept demanding to know if I remembered it yet." She shook her head. "John could have been a writer, with that imagionation. I don't know what he was thinking, joining the army like that! I thought for sure he'd be a scientist, like us."  
  
It was Dr. Micheals turn to smile. "He told me he felt like a kid again, leading his band on 'Lost Boys' to war with the indians, who he referred to as 'redskins' ."  
  
Dr. Wendy snorted in a most unladylike manner. "I saw pictures of his troops. If those were 'boys', then I'm an armidillos aunt!" She snuck a quick look into each room, occasionally barking out orders to her staff. "He was so crushed when they expelled him from the army. Called him crazy, they did. It's no surprise they sent him to us."  
  
Dr. Micheal checked the room across the hall. "Someone change this mans bed pan!" he commanded. "And increase his food rations, poor man looks half starved, This is a mental hospital, not a prison!"  
  
When he turned around, he found himself face to face with a glowering Dr. Wendy.  
  
"Would you hurry up?" she asked impatiently. "The Peter-man is getting louder by the second!"  
  
Indeed, the crows from room 16-1-14, no more than fifty feet away now, were getting louder. The Peter-man seemed anxious, and crowed with an urgency that could almost be felt.  
  
Dr. Micheal nodded and made sure the door was securely shut.  
  
"I remember when we first started to use PPD on John," Dr. Micheal began. "I felt so...so guilty."  
  
Dr. Wendy's head whirled around, and she gave him a look that screamed, "What?"  
  
Dr. Micheal smiled at the glass leading into the next room, where a young woman sat, rocking back and forth. "We can help these people," he explained. "And they need to be helped. But John...John seemed so happy with his fantasies, even when no one believed him. It's a shame we couldn't cure him though. Maybe then..."  
  
Dr. Wendy backed away from the next window, issuing commands of a change of sheets for the man inside. "Micheal, John ran away. We don't know for sure that he's dead." Suddenly she laughed, a wide smile nearly breaking her teeth. "Maybe he's found his Never Land."  
  
As she reached for th next door handle, her brother stopped her hand. Dr. Wendy looked up at him questioningly, and he pointed to the sign reading "16-1-14". They had reached the Peter-mans room. The volume of the crows alone held testimony to that.  
  
"You sure you want to do this?" Dr. Micheal asked her. "John..."  
  
"John was completely different," she said firmly. "John was not crazy."  
  
Dr. Micheal looked doubtful, but allowed his sister to push past him and into the Peter-mans room.  
  
Inside, the Peter-man sat on the bed, crowing, his eyes squeezed tightly shut and his chin held up in a proud manner. His ears twitched at their entry, and he stopped mid-crow. Instead, his lips spread into a fiendish grin and his eyes popped open.  
  
"Hullo!" he said, his voivce not a bit hoarse from the continued use. "I'm Peter Pan! The wonderful, fabulous, magnificant Peter Pan!"  
  
For a moment, it seemed to Dr. Wendy that the old, weathered man before her simply melted away. In his steadwas a tall, lanky boyof 13, his wild, red hair braided with twigs, and dirt pinted on his cheeks. The white clothes were gone, replaced by a tunic of leaves. He grinned foolishly, revealing a set of pearly white childrens teeth.  
  
"Hello, Wendy! Want to come play?" the boy asked.  
  
Dr. Wendy blinked and the boy disappeared back into her subconsious. But now there was something out of place about the old man, something she had not noticed before.  
  
"Micheal!" she whispered feircly. "He still has all his baby teeth!"  
  
Dr. Micheal brushed off her comment and raised a hand to sush her. Approaching the Peter-man's bed carefully, he motioned the nurses into the room. They immediatly began to hook up syringes to tubes, and tubes to medication.  
  
"My name is Dr. Micheal Darling," he introduced, talking slowly. "This is my sister, Dr. Wendy..."  
  
"Moria Angela Darling!" interrupted the old man, his smile widening to show that, indeed, he did have his baby teeth intact. He struggled to get up from his bed, and immediatly attendents rushed to hold his feet. Lying him on his back, they strapped his legs to the bed posts, and pressed a band across his chest to keep him from sitting up. This didn't seem to inconvienence the Peter-man in the least, and he looked content to lye there, looking up at them.  
  
"You didn't think I'd remember! But I did!" he said proudly, as nurses began to unwrap the underside of his elbow.  
  
Dr. Wendy had gone white, and backed againtst the plexiglass window, struck by peices of a distant memory. Something about a light, and a lost shadow, and a flute that sang as a bell.  
  
Dr. Micheal was by her side at once.  
  
"We don't have to do this," he pleaded. "We can come back tomorrow! Please, Wendy, we can fix him!"  
  
"No," Dr. ZWendy said venomously. "We couldn't save John and we can't save Peter-man!"  
  
The way the nurses were looking at the two strangely, Dr. Wendy knew she had best lower her voice. Pulling her brother by the scruff of his coller, she dragged him away from the excessivly happy patient.  
  
"Peter-man has been on our treatment for years. If we don't end this now, who knows? He could harm himself, like John, when he tried to fly off a bridge." Seeing her brother begin to argue, she clapped a hand over his mouth. "Worse, he could hurt other people."  
  
Dr. Micheal lowered his head in defeat. A part of him wanted to scream at her that she was wrong. That they could save him. But then, the medical school degree earning side argued back, and he newit was to no avail. They had to end the Peter-mans life--a mercy stroke.  
  
The two siblings walked back to the bedside trembling. Neither one wanted to preform the awful deed ahead of them, not when the tin, childish part of them still believed in Never Never Land. Not when John was out there searching and praying for a man like the Peter Pan to come rescue him. Not when they had both once known the truth.  
  
A clatter brought the Peter-mans attention to the cart beside him, now teeming with needles. His large, innocent green eyes widened in fear.  
  
"Mother!" he cried, his voice sounding strangely young. "Don't let them hurt me! Mother! Mother!"  
  
Dr. Wendy didn't know what drew her in that call, but at the first frightened "mother!" she had raced to his side. Laying a cool hand against the old mans forehead, she used the other to wipe the tears streaming down the poor mans face. At her touch, a faint smile appeared on his lips and he stopped twitching.  
  
"Mother? Wendy? Mother?" he asked tentitivly, searching her facefor a trace of the mother she had once been to him.  
  
Dr. Wendy smiled softly through tears, and nodded. "Yes, Peter, my Peter, I'm back."  
  
She didn't know why she had said it, or what she meant by it, but it comforted the patient.  
  
"I have something for you, Wendy," he said. He struggled against his bonds, clearly trying to get up and find his treasure. He looked heoplessly confused at his restraints. Dr. Micheal joined his sister, resting a comforting hand on her shoulder.  
  
"Where is it?" he asked the Peter-man.  
  
The Peter-man smiled again, all trace of discomfort washed from his face. "Hullo, Micheal!" he said. "It's over there!" He jerked his head toward a single, plain chair. On it rested a thimble, old and rusted with more time than could have passed in a single lifetime.  
  
The Peter-man nodded, satisfied. "It's our kiss!" he explained to Wendy. "I've been saving it for you! I tried to come back for you, Micheal, and John, but you weren't home." His eyes saddend. "No one was home..."  
  
Dr. Wendy accepted the thimble, her heart strangely lifted. "Thank you," she whispered, trying to recall why such a simple thing would seem so important to him. And more confusingly, why was it so important to her?  
  
Suddenly the Peter-mans eyes dropped and his head rolled back onto the pillow. For a moment, it appeared to all the witnesses that he was dead. Only the slight rise and fall of his chest proved otherwise.  
  
"I'm tired, Mother," he said pitifully. "I've never been so tired. And I hurt all the time. It hurts here." He placed his hand over his heart to demonstrate. "Will you stop the hurt mother?"  
  
Dr. Micheal and Dr. Wendy exchanged worried glances. Surely a man so energetic, so loud, so innocent as the Peter-man, would not fall victem to such a thing as old age?  
  
"I want to sleep now, Wendy," the Peter-man said, his breaths coming more ruggedly. "Can I sleep now?"  
  
Dr. Wendy felt a tear slide down her cheek as she took his hand. "Yes Peter," she said. "Micheal and I will let you sleep now."  
  
A nurse slipped a syringe into her trembling hand. For a moment she could only stare at it absently, and her brother had to curl her fingers around it before she could hold it properly.  
  
The Peter-man looked up at Wendy so hopefully, she thought she might drop the syringe.  
  
"Are you taking me back to Neverland?" he asked, hs eyes wide and innocent.  
  
dr. Wendy felt her heart break. Tears swelled up and and overflowed her own eyes as she slid the tip of the needle into the soft flesh on his arm. As he closed his eyes one final time, Wendy Moria Angela darling leaned forward and brushed her lips softly against his forehead.  
  
"Yes Peter Pan, back to Neverland."  
  
____________________________________________________________________________ __  
  
Far away, past the second star to the right and straight on till morning, a green island sits, surrounded by the clearest water imagionable. In its bays, beautiful mermaids swish their tails seductivly as they braid seaweed into their glowing locks. Occasionally a ship, brimming with pirates and decorated by a traditional skull flag, will sail by. At its head, a lone captain waves his golden hook in the air, and looks to the sky for a hint of his sworn enemy. Too often cannonballs are hurled at the beach, hoping to bring a redskinned warrior from hiding.  
  
And below the trees, wrapped in caves of dirt and grime that would make any mother wince, seven little boys sit in innocence. Slightly, the twins, Nibs, Tootles, Curly...and lastly, John Darling. The Lost Boys of Neverland, and Peter Pans most loyal friends.  
  
The whole of Neverland sleeps, quiet, waiting for the freckled, wild spirit of Peter Pan to return. For Never-Neverland is but a child, after all--and what do children know of death?  
  
  
  
The Last Night In The Nursery  
  
I bring my flute to my lips  
  
and give its gentle sound a kiss  
  
For so my spirit longs to be  
  
across the rainy wind swept sea  
  
To a land where dreams n'er die  
  
just rest, tucked safe beneath the sky  
  
But, lo, my wings are broke now  
  
and never 'gain reach that timeless tower  
  
Now my head bows down to sleep  
  
for I've one more promise to keep  
  
I shan't return when I awake  
  
I've grown too much to journeys take  
  
I'd best forget of fairys light  
  
for think of me, O what a sight!  
  
If I revealed of secrets told  
  
to others who are much too old  
  
To understand why sleepless nights  
  
bring nightmares worse than devlish bites  
  
I'll sleep now, my breathing cease  
  
aft' this, my final night of peace  
  
And below the sun, and, sand, and sea  
  
Neverland sleeps in wait for me  
  
-A poem by Wazzup Girl 


End file.
